A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss.

Many photographers think they are photographing nature when they are only caricaturing her.

In the right hands, literature is not resorted to as a consolation, and by the broken and decayed, but as a decalogue.

Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one.

The best conversation is rare. Society seems to have agreed to treat fictions as realities, and realities as fictions; and the simple lover of truth, especially if on very high grounds, as a religious or intellectual seeker, finds himself a stranger and alien.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

Nature does not cocker us: we are children, not pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws.